Week 9 (Week Beginning 22/03/10)

Tell me why I don't like Mondays...

I don't really need to tell you when I can show you...

My piece decided it wanted to have a go at flying when I introduced it to the pumice wheel. I had been doing fine for most of that day on a flat felt wheel to get the flat surfaces all polished up with pumice. Some one else needed to use it so I went on the the brush wheel to polish off the curvier surface. I was going quite well until the tip got caught in the bristles and the wheel pulled it out of my hands launching it into the metal trough under the wheel breaking off the tip of the piece and scratching the piece a little too.

I was left in tears and shock for a little while. I'm really glad I have some lovely friends around to take care of me and cheer me up with chocolate. I managed to pull myself together faster than I expected I would have at the moment I felt the piece pull away from my hands and smash, it's a wounder what chocolate and a bit determination can do.

I had also decide last week that if I got this piece finished I would submit it to the international glass festival for the student prize. So at the end of last week I was preparing to get photos done and finish filling out forms, for this reason I really waned to push on and get the piece finished. After a little break me Dave and Jo had a little conference about what could be done with the piece (binning it was not an option, not that I would have done that anyway) We decide to try to follow the flow from the curves in the piece and curve off the edge by carving it down on the diamond wheel.
I couldn't get this done straight away like I would have wanted to because Simon the only one able to change the diamond wheel wheel wasn't in, so I tried to think of something else to get on with and keep positive about this piece.

Other things to get on with

I carved a plaster modle a couple of weeks ago but with all the polishing I had almost forgoten about it to I dicided that I would eventually like to get this into glass and so started cutting up all of my gelflex I could find and start soaking the plaster. Also I have a feeling over the next few week people are going to be after all the equipment they can get their hands on so I'm better off getting it done now so I can get some waxes out in the week and make some moulds to dry over the easter holidays.

When cutting up the gexflex I suspected that I wouldn't have enought  to fill my mould. I found this to be true when pouring the gelfex into the mould. As the gelflex statered to cool I tried using a stick to push the gelfex up over the bit of the mould that wasnt completlyey covered. This shouldn't be too much of a problem, when the gelflex has cooled I will pour over some plaster this will keep the shape and stiffen the mould.
On a positive note the gelfelx didn't bubble.
Also during the week I managed to get two waxes done and in moulds. 

 
While I was gelfexinging I also got a wax from my two part mould from the other week and set up some boards to make a two part mould. Not quite sure what I'll do with it yet but, I have thought about carving into the glass surface with the diamond wheel rather than making the modle and carving it first and making multiples of the one shape. If I were to carve the glass insted I could make it so every piece is a one off. I might cast this with clear glassma and have a go if I have time or I haven't come up with any better ideas to work on over the holidays. Alternitivly I could use the gaffer colours and polish like in my other pieces so that the contrast is between the the form and the shapes within the glass rather than, the contrast in the form. I don't think that the colours and the flow within the clours of the glass seem to suit the form very well. Or if I don't do any of this keep the mould cast it later and polish in my own time then sell it when I've finished university when I've finally thought about what I want to do with the piece.
Anyway back to mould making, when making this mould I found out that we wer out of HT, so insted I would need to use fiber strands. So the mixture for this mould was 4liter of Water mixed with 2.8kg of Plaster, 2.8kg of Silica and 4 spoon fulls of fiber strands. The mix filled the mould very nicely no excess, yay.

Carving

After some work on on the diamond wheel, linisher and the pumice wheel I managed to alter the piece to a form I was happy with. Originally I wanted the piece to stand with the wave underneath but when I was polishing I started looking at the piece from different angles and thought that this way suited the piece best and in a way I thought it looked a little like a butterfly wing, very pretty. The shape also looks like a wave now and the clours really add to it. I'm really proud I managed to do something with the piece even after it got broken. Some people have even said how much they prefer the way this one looks to the way it was before, they are probably being nice. I like it any way :)

Now to get it cleaned up and photographed...

Week 4 (Week Beginning 15/02/10) Continued....

Gel flex and Wax

After leaving the gel flex over night to cool I was able to take out the piece of plaster I had taken a mould from, the tip of the plaster had got stuck in the top of the mould bit I managed to get i tout with a small tool, I then used some araldite to glue it back together...looked as good as new.
There were some streaks in the gel flex and there was a gap where the tip of the plaster had caused some bubble but nothing that couldn't be altered after casting the wax in to the mould.
Before I started melting my wax I decided to do a displacement test to see how much glass I would need to make my piece out of glass, a friend let me borrow a billet of gaffer casting crystal because I want to do this with a billet so I can get used to casting with them so I can see the results with glass from the same company, and so I would know how much I would need to order if I wanted to use the billets. The way I did the displacement test was by pouring 1000ml of water into a measuring jug (I didn't expect I would need any more than that) then pouring the water into the gel flex mould until the water got to the top of the mould. The measurement on the jug was 600ml meaning that I would need 400ml to fill the mould (this includes the overflow) I then got a billet and put it in the 600ml of water to see how much I would need to get 400ml by getting the water level back up to 1000ml. The one billet got the water measurement up to 900ml, meaning that each billet is equal to 300ml, so I would need 1 and a third billets to fill the mould, so I will need to buy 2 billets.
Caring on to casting the wax into the mould, I chose to use a mixture of white wax and yellow wax so that after I've cast the wax it will still be able to carve out anything lumps but also if the studio gets too hot or if my hands are warm when I'm working with the wax the shape wont warp. The wax I was using was quite old and dirty so I would have to be careful when heating it because it might be dangerous for me to stir if it starts bubbling, and I dont want to get any of the dirt into my mould because it will ruin the surface. I melted the wax at around 65 degrees C and stirred it regulaly. Then when the wax had melted completely I left it a while to cool, not sure why I do this it's just something I've been told to do, so I do. When I poured the wax I did it very slowly and careflully to make sure I didn't get any dirt in the mould, when I was left with just the dirty wax at the bottom I poured it into a bowl with news paper in so I could throw it away and used some more newspaper to scrape up any bits left in the melting pot ready for the next person who uses it (because I'm nice, unlike some nasty people who leave dirty wax in the pot when they have finish, these people are bad people!). As the wax was cooling I used a spoon to break the skin on the wax and scoop some wax out to hollow the mould out a little to save some time when steaming the wax out of the mould, and get the wax to cool quicker.
When the wax had cooled I used some wax caring tools to clean out all the lumps and bumps until I was happy that it was good enough. After l cleaned the wax up I put the piece next the plaster piece to compair, the wax seems to have shrunk from the gel flex mould so I will have to do another displacement test when I have the wax cast in a mould. If I'm lucky I could save some money and I may only need 1 billet.

Desk Watch (05/02/10)

Desk at the end of week 2. Still looking a bid naked dispite the new glass editions, could do with some images stuck up of my inspiration. This will be my aim for the end of week 3

Also in the week I made a second investment mould for my arcitectual form, and have booked a kiln for the 11th and over the week end, I'm hoping I'll be able to use the same kiln as last time because I was really happy with the results, may hold the top temperature for an hour or so longer to get rid of those last few bubble, not sure weather to use the copper oxide again although I have been getting a lot of positive feed back off fellow students and staff about the ascetics of the piece. I have worked on making another wax for lost wax casting but as I'm not very happy with how the gelfex turned out last time, I'm planning to make a new gelflex mould and reinforcing it with plaster to make it stronger and so it holds its shape better. I've also made a a copy of the arcitectual shape after the original has been chipped and worn down while I was using it in hot casting and I have put the off cut glass from my kiln cast in a kiln with some copper oxide sprinkled under it, thought it might be a idea to use it to make some related pieces of jewelry.

Desk Watch (29/01/10)

The best way to judge a student is by their desk so heres mine: I'm hoping by the end of next week there will be a lot more interesting thing on there for me to show you.

Week 1 (Week Begining 25/01/10)

Casting Architectural Forms

For this new semester I have decided to carry on with some of the work I started last semester and expand upon what I have already done and taking my inspiration from architectural forms (in particular new and modern architecture like the work of Zara Hadid)
In the first semester I started using the band saw in the plaster room to make shapes cause I was having trouble modeling in card and wasn't able to accurately draw the shapes in my sketch book. After spending some time practicing on the band saw I came up with a couple of shapes I was happy with.
Above is the shape I was most pleased with. After flattening off the sides by using water and hand lapping the plaster against a sheet of sandblasted glass I soaked the plaster ready to make a gel flex mould of it. When the mould had cooled completely I poured wax into the mould and to make a wax duplicate of my plaster model in order to do a lost wax cast. The wax I made was hollowed out so that it wouldn't take too long to get the wax out of the cast (this is where I left off with this piece last semester). On the Tuesday of the first week I made the investment mould for the piece using a mixture of plaster (1.2kg), silica (1.2kg), HT (800g) and water (just over 2lts). When the mould had hardened I cleaned it up and removed the wax (because the wax was hollow I didn't bother steaming it and scraped out a bit of the wax and the rest I was able to just pull out of the mould. The mould was left a few days in the drying cupboard for it to dry completely.

Using a displacement test I found that I would need about 500ml of glass to fill the mould, so I measured out a little more than 500ml of Glasma Glass (from the hot shop) just in case. I then put the glass into a flower pot because the glass wouldn't all fit into the mould. Before putting the glass onto the mould I sieved some copper oxide onto the mould to give the glass a blue colour (this is also carrying on from some of the work I did last semester). I then rested the flower pot on top of some kiln shelf wrapped in ceramic fiber paper so if there is too much glass and the kiln shelf and the glass touch there wont be a compatibility problem.

When I was happy with how everything was set up in the kiln I shut the kiln and set it for a full cast. This is the program I used:

100 ⁰C/hr → 550 ⁰C → Pass hrs
Full ⁰C/hr → 880 ⁰C → 10.00 hrs
Full ⁰C/hr → 530 ⁰C → Pass
10 ⁰C/hr → 520 ⁰C → 11.00 hrs
10 ⁰C/hr → 300 ⁰C → Pass
20 ⁰C/hr → 100 ⁰C → Pass
End

The kiln was set on 29/01/10 I will post an image of how the piece comes out when the program is complete.

Carrying On

I starter on a piece last semester and I wasn't able to completely finish it in time for hand in so this week I have spent some time on it trying to get it polished.

The piece was a lot taller but there were cracks and I didn't want them to run through the rest of the piece. I managed to get a good polish with pumice on the polishing wheel but because of the shape its going to take some time to get to a high polish. There are also some chips in the piece and a large concave area where there was a crack in the mould so the glass much have flowed out as it was cooling, I have been thinking about using the diamond wheel to smooth down these area so they look better and are easier to polish. I was intending to enter this piece to the warm glass award but the lack of technicians has meant I haven't been able to have much time in the cold work shop.

Hot Work

On the Friday afternoon I made a seconded wax of the shape in casting architectural forms, and when I was waiting for it to cool I had planned to do some polishing but no one was in to keep an eye on the cold work shop so I decided to go and do some work in the hot shop, not really aiming to make anything just wanted to practice shaping and see if I could still manage working with hot glass. I took a few gathers but didn't do any blowing because I had a cold sore, so spent a lot of time shaping and re-heating the glass. I didn't keep the piece in the end because I didn't fancy paying for it and it didn't seem very relevant to my work. But after having a chat with Simon (the hot glass technician) about my work he suggested doing hot casts of the plaster pieces I had already made. I haven't done any hot casting before so Simon said he would help me on Monday afternoon to see if I was interested in incorporating it in to my work.